Date

Fall 2016

Category

Typography

Architectonics

Renzo Piano is an Italian architect and engineer from Genoa, Italy. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. It is granted annually and is often referred to as “architecture’s Nobel” and “the profession’s highest honor.”

This is a project based on the main philosophies of the 1998 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Renzo Piano. After in-depth research on Renzo Piano, I conceptualized a typographic interpretation of Pianoʻs main philosophies and qualities in his work:

He is like a palimpsest – he builds without destroying what was there before, working with the ghost of what was in the past and what is there now. This is shown through the transparency of the poster when in the book form, the idea of having a “ghost” of the previous laureate’s biography and essay in the back of Piano’s, and typographically crossing out information and leaving behind only the punctuation marks.

He comes from a family of builders, which influences how he works and thinks- a characteristic that clearly distinguishes him from other architects. This aspect is addressed in the design by adding measurements, using the spine of the book cover as a ruler, physically building a slipcase, and typographically “building” by adding supplementary information to the text with parenthesis, and emphasizing syntax. I also chose a typeface (Scala) that has a serif and sans serif, which again ties into the idea of building, adding to something.

He thinks of space as a microcosm – an inner landscape. This is carried into the different pieces of this project typographically by creating a text block inside of another text block, to emphasize how the interior space in many of his buildings merge with the outside world as if it is one piece. This is also shown through the unique folding of the book, which has 3 mini half-pages that further emphasize the idea of the inside – outside space as a microcosm inner landscape(the book) within a larger landscape (the poster).

The entire project consists of a set of 24 cards (front and back) that appear first in the form of a book cover, a 14-page book with uniquely folded pages, an 18” x 66” poster made from opening the book, and a slipcase to contain everything.